This one comes to us from Juliette Alvey. I could never be a hunter. This is not a moral judgment but rather a statement about my squeamishness. I was just driving home and saw a raccoon get hit by the car in front of me. I felt my gut wrench as the animal lay still […]
In the Midst of Life We Are in October
What images come to mind when you think of Halloween? Ghosts? Skeletons? Gravestones? Some Christians cry foul at such “morbid” imagery, but it seems to me this stems from a safely modern, bourgeois outlook. Our older brothers and sisters in medieval Europe most assuredly wouldn’t know what to make of the bland, sterilized Christianity regnant […]
Comedians in Cars Talking About Death
This one comes to us from Juliette Alvey. Anytime I hear someone speak positively about death or not fearing death, my ears perk up. I am not one of those people. I am scared to death to die. So when Jerry Seinfeld had a conversation with John Mulaney on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and predicted […]
Another Week Ends: Good Friday, a Grand Miracle, Boomers’ Death Boom, Lazarus Is Dead, Meritocracy, Performance, [chill / lofi / jazzhop], and Oat Milk
1. Today is Good Friday, which means, if ever there were a time to consider the brutal instrument of death at the center of a major world religion, that time may as well be now. Off-putting and oft-baffling, the cross carries a multifaceted meaning that can prove elusive for onlookers and skeptics (and, much of […]
The Boy Who Lived: A Tribute to My First Reading of the Harry Potter Series
Spoilers! (But I might be last person who would have needed that warning.) I closed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and sat frozen in place. The weight in my chest slowly subsided as tears continued to stream down my face. I couldn’t quite figure out what to do next. The reality sunk in that […]
The Ash Wednesday Immortality Bus
From our archives, the following piece by Ethan Richardson was originally published in 2017 — but the Immortality Bus is ageless. Buckle up… There was a dark horse in the 2016 presidential campaign that you missed. And what a shame! This gentleman really promised to turn things around, in ways no one else was talking about. […]
I Am Not Karl Lagerfeld
A man who designed things died this week, but what ended was his central, lifelong design: himself. I design things every day, but I am completely clueless about my own design. Death imposes reflection on us, whether we like it or not. So when I see a person pass away who was virtually a cartoon of […]
The Difficulty of Drawing Near the Suffering
This comes to us from Father Kenneth Tanner. When I first came to the parish I serve, there were about twenty persons over the age of seventy. We have since buried a few, some have retired to Florida or warmer states, but until recently about half were still active participants in our worship and community. […]
Requiescat in Pace: The Naming Power of HBO’s The Leftovers
Last week, the Earth made a seismic shift, though mostly unnoticed. A gentle giant among us in terms of Anglican church music, John Bradford Bohl, died unexpectedly at the young age of 37. I had the joy of serving with him at Saint Paul’s K Street in Washington, D.C., and when I took over the venerable […]
Another Week Ends: Death Cafés, Eighth Grade, Basement Revolver, Sterile Style, Church Planting, and the Meekness of God
1. Lots to consider from this week’s first link: “The Positive Death Movement Comes to Life,” by John Leland for the Times (ht SZ). All told, this article is partly amazing, partly ridiculous. First, the amazing. “Death is having a moment,” the subtitle says. This is good news in the context of modernity’s widespread denial […]
For Once in Your Life Just Let It Go: The Terrible Mercy of Lament
My all-time favorite YouTube comment has to be this one, left underneath a clip of the penultimate scene from 1982’s film, Blade Runner. Taking place immediately after an epic battle between Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, we are witness to a self-delivered eulogy: boxerking1000 Best…Death…EVER!!! I sometimes sit down in the shower naked and quote this […]
Riding Bikes with the Mitford Sisters, Six Feet Under.
The training wheels came off at the cemetery. That sounds incredibly macabre, like a snippet from an Edward Gorey book, but the reality is much more prosaic. With the cemetery a couple houses down from where I grew up on a busy state route, it was the safest place to learn to ride. My great-grandfather, […]
